Two Treadmill Runs

My younger son had no nursery school Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week due to some conference that the teachers were attending. I guess it is nice that the teachers are getting some "continuing education" opportunities, but it just makes all of the non-Stay-at-Home-Parents need to scramble.

Our scramble was this - I took Wednesday and Friday morning off and all day Thursday off. I have some vacation to burn before the end of the year, so it was not a big deal for me.

On Thursday, I took my son on a road trip to the Statue of Liberty! I did the same thing with my older son 3 years ago when he was 4 years old and had the same situation. Although, on that trip we actually visited family afterwards and stayed in New York for a night. This time I just went up in the morning and back home in the evening.

With the scramble - the only way I was going to manage to get some runs in was to wake up early or take my son to the gym. So on Wednesday and Friday morning I went to the gym (for some reason I have not been able to wake up early lately...). My son played in the babysitting room which he loves. He plays SuperMario, watches television and runs around with other kids his age. What's not to like?

I focused on moderate intensity runs on the treadmill - based on Heart Rate. Wednesday's run was 4.5 miles at an average heart rate of 143 and an 11:00/mile pace. Today's run was a little higher on the heart rate - I started at 145 and bumped it up 2 bpm every mile until I hit 4.5 miles and then cooled down for half a mile. I ended up running at a 10:22/mile pace with an average heart rate of 147.

All said, I have 9.5 miles in this week which is pretty low. I have a 5K this weekend on Sunday, so the total weekly mileage will barely be over 15 miles. I used to run 15 miles before 9am!

Starting next week I need to get my behind in gear and get more miles in. Especially since we're in the Halloween to Thanksgiving to Channukah/Christmas/New Year's prime eating season...

No Running = No Blogging

I haven't run in a few days and I'm starting to feel a bit lethargic. I just haven't been able to drag my lazy behind out of bed in the mornings (OK...we had a 4 year old visitor in the middle of the night twice last night) and I have been a bit too busy during the day to cram in a run.

The rest of the week is a strange schedule for me - my younger son's nursery school is off and since I have some vacation days to burn I'm taking half days on Wednesday and Friday and the full day off on Thursday.

I intend on going to the gym on Wednesday and Friday mornings and having my son play in the child care room while I run on the treadmill. Not ideal, but it will do.

Thursday, I'm going to take him to see the Statue of Liberty! I took my older son there when he was 4 years old and had a day off from his nursery school, so I decided to do the same thing with the little guy. Should be fun!

Sunday is the Cold Turkey 10K. A few weeks ago, I thought I would be going for a new 10K PR, but my training has been pretty on and off since the marathon. We'll see how I feel and if I still have kept that marathon conditioning!

Long Run - Sans Watch

I woke up Saturday morning ready to get in a long run before heading to synagogue with the family - like I normally do. I was planning to do somewhere in the 7-8 mile range and decided to run to the Rio center and either around one half of the lake (for about 7.6 miles) or around the lake one and a half times (for 8.3 miles).

The weather was still a bit on the chilly side - about 50 degrees - and overcast and misty with a few drizzles. Not beautiful, but not too bad for a run either.

I had laid out all of my clothes and gear the night before, but when I went to turn RedG on, he wouldn't wake up! This had happened once before - at the Rockville Twilight 8K race during the summer - but since then he has been trouble free. I decided I would just grab my old Polar HRM watch since I knew the total distance of the route and I wasn't so concerned about mile splits. I found the Polar watch and it was totally blank - the battery had died.

So off I went on my run - no watch and no heart rate monitor. I can't remember the last time I ran without a watch....I mean I'm so addicted to my running log that I NEED to have at least my distance and time, right?

The only piece of technology I had with me was my iPod shuffle. I had loaded some Idan Raichel albums onto the shuffle - good tunes to get lost in while going on a nice, long easy run.

I must tell you, the first mile or so was really strange. I'm always checking my HRM feedback every few minutes just to make sure I'm not overtraining or if I can pick up the pace a bit. I got to where I normally check my mile 1 split and there was nothing to check. Really. Strange.

However, I finally got into a groove. I was free to run - and I ran hard. There were a few hills that I decided to attack - and there was nothing telling me to slow down - so I never stopped.

When I got to the lake at Rio, I decided to go for the extra lap around the lake. Why not? I had no idea what time it was. I had no idea how fast I was running. It was just me, the drizzle and my tunes. What's not to love about that!

It's still a bit strange that my RunningAhead running log only has a distance for my run - no time, no pace, no average heart rate. However, I must say that after the first two miles or so, I really didn't mind running without the watch. Perhaps I'll do it more often when I'm not training for a goal race.

Ch, Ch, Ch, Ch - CHANGES!

Well...the sale of Nortel's CDMA unit to Ericsson completed today, so I will be an Ericsson employee as of Monday. I'll have the same job, reporting to the same boss and working with the same customers and products - so the change is not too drastic. However, I've been working for Nortel for 16 years now - they were my first employer out of college - so switching to a new company will be somewhat of an adjustment.

Hopefully the learning curve of new systems (ordering, financial, telephone, email, expense reports, etc.) and the new corporate culture will not be too steep.

In other "changes" news, I'm always amazed to see when there is a shift in technology in how people communicate with one another. I get to see this pretty often within the Israeli Dance troupe for teens that I co-direct. When I started with the group about 7 years ago, the teens all had AIM screen names - and this seemed to be the main source of communication for them. If I needed to ask someone a question as to whether they could attend a particular performance, I would see if they were on AIM and IM them. A few years later, we started to do all of our performance scheduling on Evite. Last year, I saw that the Evite system wasn't working so well (many of the Evites got stuck in spam folders) and I realized that I needed to use Facebook.

In the span of 7 years I have been through 3 separate systems of communications. I wonder what next year will bring??

And one more thing about Facebook. I have been writing this blog since last January - it is almost two years old now! However, about a month ago I linked the blog into Facebook and I must have at least quadrupled my readership. This week I have bumped into so many people who have told me that they have been following my marathon training on Facebook. Nice!

Sneaky Speed Run

I'm working a lot of nights this week for work. I knew that last night was going to be an all-nighter given the scope of what needed to be done...it ends up that I did not get into bed until 5:45am! I have woken up earlier for a normal weekday run!!

I somehow was able to sleep until noon. I'm usually not a good daytime sleeper but I guess I really needed the sleep (OK...Benadryl definitely helped!)

I decided to go for a quick run before getting to work. 4 easy miles was the plan.

I looked out the window and it seemed like the rain had stopped. However, it was still a bit chilly and windy, so I wore my microfiber pullover. This was a good call as it definitely helped with the wind and it started to rain a bit mid run.

Since it was chilly, my body wanted to move to warm up. I looked down at RedG to get my first mile split - 9:26. I wanted to slow down after that, but I kept up the pace to keep myself warm. Mile 2 split - 9:51.

At this point I decided that if I was already running sub-10 minute miles, this wasn't going to be an "easy" run. I may as well start running and a good clip, attack the hills, etc. Mile 3 - 9:15.

As I worked my way back into the neighborhood, I must have turned on the burners a bit. I know I wasn't going full out - I would have remembered pushing it hard if I was - but my pace over the last mile sped up to 8:49.

Overall, I ran close to 4.2 miles at a 9:19 pace. So much for a "nice and easy" run around the neighborhood.

Upcoming Races

Now that the marathon is behind me - and that I'm running again (unlike after my first marathon) - I'd like to take advantage of my marathon conditioning and run some races...and perhaps earn some more new PRs.

My 10K PR was set in 2006, when I was training for my first Half Marathon. It was in the Pike's Peek race which is net downhill and a pretty fast course. My time was 56:14 - a 9:03/mile pace. Based on some of my training runs, I'm pretty sure I can go sub-9:00/mile.

I would normally run the Turkey Chase on Thanksgiving Day, but it looks like we are hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year, so I'll be busy with the turkey and getting the house ready. So I found another 10K the Sunday before Thanksgiving that is held by the Annapolis Striders. I know nothing about the course - I hope it is not too hilly!

Following up after that, I may try running the Gar Williams Half Marathon on December 5. My Half Marathon PR was set earlier this year at the Run For The Shelter Half Marathon in 2:13:22 - a 10:11/mile pace. I'm pretty sure I can run a Half Marathon in a sub-10:00/mile pace - again, if it is not too hilly.

I hope I can stay healthy and injury-free to get to the starting line of these races - and kick some behind!!!

Morning Run DENIED!

With the procurement of my seasonal GU flavors, I was actually really psyched to wake up early and run with a shot of Vanilla Gingerbread GU.

I was winding down around 9:30pm last night - I was going to hit the sack early so I could get up early to run. Or so I thought...

It was about then that I remembered that I had to open up a conference bridge at 11pm for another maintenance window activity at work. If everything went right, I could open the bridge, see that everything had started up nicely and then hang up by 11:20pm. Of course, if this happened often, there would be little need for Project Managers.

You guessed it - things did not go as planned. "Luckily", I got to bed at 1:30am. However, that meant no morning run.

I did carve out some time in the late morning after a few conference calls to go for a 3 mile run. Even though I didn't exactly need the GU to run a 3 miler a few hours after breakfast, I decided to try the Vanilla Gingerbread flavor anyhow.

This tasted a lot like the Starbucks Gingerbread Latte. It tasted a little more ginger-y and not as sweet as the Starbucks drink, but overall I was pretty impressed. I'm not usually one for strong GU flavors - especially mid-run - but to start off your morning with a shot of this (or the mint chocolate) before an early morning run will be enough of a treat to make those "dark o'clock" runs worth it.

I hit my 3-mile neighborhood lake loop. I took it easy the first two miles - 10:37 and 10:40 - and then somehow I tore it up in mile 3 with a 9:52. Avg HR was 152, but this included some elevated readings in the first mile (second mile's avg HR was 149 and third mile was 151).

I'm not sure what the rest of the week will hold for me in terms of running. I may have some more late nights ahead, so I may need to rest up a bit.

Seasonal GUs Are Here!! (a new motivation for a morning run...)

I'm working in Reston, VA today so on my lunch break I walked around Reston Town Center and walked into Potomac River Running (to my friends at Fleet Feet...I'm sorry - I'll be back by you very soon!).

I was looking around and saw that the seasonal GUs are in. Hooray!!!

Last year I bought a box of the Mint Chocolate GU in the spring when it was on sale, and I loved this flavor. It was like downing a peppermint patty before my run...yum!

The store had both the Mint Chocolate and a new flavor (at least to me) - Vanilla Gingerbread.

I bought a box of both.

I now can't wait for my run tomorrow.

First Post-Marathon "Long" Run

It's kind of funny to be calling a 6 miler a "long" run now :-)

However, now that I'm not training for a marathon - or really anything right now - a 6-10 mile run is what I'll likely be doing on the weekend as a "long" run to compliment my 3-5 mile weekly morning runs.

The weather yesterday was beautiful - sunny and 70 degrees. Definitely not what you normally expect from early November in the DC area.

I had to drop my older son off at an afternoon birthday party which was conveniently located at the North end of the Rock Creek Trail. I said to hell with watching football (the Redskins are horrible this year anyhow...) and decided to go for my run on the trail. I parked the car near the trail, headed south on the trail for 3 miles and then headed back up to my car.

I brought my iPod shuffle along loaded with a playlist that I used during my speedwork runs - Lose Yourself, Pump It, Kashmir, Fire and some other tunes that get me going. This was good and bad - I found myself moving a bit too fast for a nice, easy run. My splits were 10:10, 10:11, 9:57, 10:11 and 10:08 before I slowed myself down for a final 10:40 mile.

The good news - I was able to run the six miles pain free! The bad news - later that evening and today, I have some soreness in my hip-flexor muscle. I'm already stretching it out as part of some of the stretches my chiro gave to me, so perhaps the focus on this area is also contributing to the pain.

I was a bit bummed out that I was sore today since the weather is beautiful again. I would have loved to jump out for a run before it gets cold again tomorrow, but I know my body would not appreciate it. I'd rather run healthy in the cold than with pain on a beautiful day. I guess I'll just have to find something else to do outside today!

Getting Back On Track

The post-marathon soreness in my legs was virtually gone by Thursday morning - I'm sure the massage helped tremendously!!! So Friday morning I headed out for a morning run. I wanted to get a few miles in before my chiro appointment to see if my hamstring issue flared up again.

It was still dark outside at 6am when I left the house Friday morning. Hey...wasn't changing the clocks supposed to help with this morning darkness thing??? Also, it seemed really cold. I found out later it was only 37 degrees - so my choice of a long-sleeve NikePro crew (which retains heat) may have been a bit too much...but it sure made the first mile a bit more bearable.

I headed out on a route that I could make 2 miles or more - depending when I re-entered the community. It's a bit hillier than my normal route, but I didn't want to go 4.5 miles - just in case the pain came back. Luckily, the hamstring didn't bother me.

I ran 2.5 miles - at a 10:42/mile pace. Nice and easy.

I did not run this morning - I think another day of rest is probably a good thing right now. However, resting didn't mean that I sat on my behind all day. This afternoon, I took my 7 year old to Seneca Creek Park for a little hiking. We hiked all the way around Clopper Lake. It was about 4 miles of walking for the two of us. My son did start to complain about 3/4 of the way around the lake, but otherwise he was a real trooper.

At the very end of the hike, we started to hear a sound that was like a hyena or monkey, however, we realized it was coming from the sky. We stopped and looked up and saw a bird stop at a nearby tree. When we got a better look at it, we saw it was a woodpecker! The bird stopped "laughing", pecked the tree once and then entered a hole in the tree. It was really cool. A little bit after that we started to see lots of deer. Seeing all of the wildlife definitely took my son's mind off of the fact that we had just walked 4 miles.

I'm planning to go for another run tomorrow morning - hopefully in the 5-6 mile range. We'll see how that goes and then decide on next week's plans for running...

The 2009 New York Marathon - Race Report

I've already blogged about the day before and the morning of the 2009 New York Marathon. I'm now lined up in the corral and ready to go!

My goal for this race was to first to run as close to an even split as possible. Last year at the Frederick Marathon, I ran a 2:13 first half and a 2:46 second half (where I started to fall apart around mile 16). This year, I was shooting for a 4:40 finishing time - which equates to a 10:40/mile pace. My strategy was to break up the race into three chunks - 10-10-10: the first 10 miles at a sub-150 heart rate, the next 10 miles by feel and the last 10K in smaller chunks to take me to the finish line.

The corral was pretty chaotic when I entered. I was in corral "G" - which was the last one. I saw one of the pace team signs about 20 yards ahead of me that read "5:00". I mentioned to ZF that we should try to line up a little ahead of that pace group since we were both shooting for 4:40-ish finishes, however, there was no way to navigate through the mass of humanity. I had already disposed of my sweatshirt and left it in a pile to be donated, but many people waited until they were in the corrals to take off their "throw-away" layers. Sweatshirts and sweatpants were strewn upon the chain link fence to our right and hanging off the top of porta-potties to our left...and some pieces just left on the ground for everyone to step on (and hopefully not trip over).

Finally, we heard the cannon go off (I guess they shoot it off multiple times for the different wave starts) and we started to slowly move forward. In a few minutes I was able to see the bridge again and all of the runners ahead of us starting out their race. At this point I saw two crazy costumes - one guy had a huge inner-tube looking thing with an ostrich coming up from it...another person in the adjacent corral had a tall Eiffel Tower costume. I don't know how they can run a full marathon with those things...

We finally crossed the starting line at around 10:30am and started to climb up the Verrazano Bridge. What an awesome way to start the marathon! I was lucky to be on the left side of the bridge as I got a good view of the NY skyline. It was definitely windy on the bridge - part of me wished that I would have kept an outer layer for this portion of the run, but I knew I would warm up very soon. I had to keep telling myself to slow down - I had tons of adrenaline running through me and easily could have tried to attack the bridge, but I knew it would be better to have a slow mile up and a faster mile down. I was able to hold to this strategy:

Mile 1 - 11:18 / avg HR 163 (false HR readings? adrenaline?? all uphill???)
Mile 2 - 9:51 / avg HR 145 (more like it!)

Immediately coming off the bridge, we were met by hundreds of screaming spectators in the first block welcoming us to Brooklyn! It seemed like entire communities were out - kids lining the streets with hands out for high-fives, bands playing every few blocks, people with signs encouraging their friends and family members - and encouraging strangers with the names that they had on their shirts (or in my case, since I had "FOR NANA" on my shirt, I had many people encouraging me to run for Nana!) It was truly AMAZING. What was absolutely insane, however, was that this continued for the majority of Brooklyn. All 11 miles of it - with the exception of about 1/2 mile through the ultra-religious chassidic Williamsburgh area.

I asked ZF, who had recently run the Rock-n-Roll Seattle Marathon, if that race had as many bands playing. She laughed and said that there was no comparison...in Seattle there was either a band or a cheerleading squad (and mostly cheerleaders - not bands) every mile or so, but what we were seeing in Brooklyn was some kind of music playing (rock band, DJs, bongo players, bagpipes, marching bands, chiors, etc.) every few blocks.

Mile 3 - 10:40 / avg HR 151
Mile 4 - 10:34 / avg HR 152

Around this time the three color groups converged. I looked to the other side of the road and saw Coach Jeff and his wife running. I called out and ran over to him. We wished each other good luck - I thanked him again for all of the coaching support! - he snapped a picture and we were off again.



It was also around this time that my left foot started to have little spasms. Kind of odd, since my foot wasn't hurting at all leading up to the race and this didn't happen during training. I let ZF know that I had to stretch it out. She went ahead and I went to the side of the road to stretch for a bit.

Mile 5 - 10:52 / avg HR 150 (included stretching my foot, so I must have run the other parts pretty fast...)
Mile 6 - 10:33 / avg HR 147
Mile 7 - 10:46 / avg HR 149

At this point I was running completely solo - and I would for the rest of the race. Every so often I would start talking to other people on the course. There were two guys who live in Florida who saw my shirt and asked me about my connection with the Alzheimer's Association. I told them my Nana's story - arriving in Ellis Island 100 years ago in November of 1909, living in Brooklyn most of her life (we were close to her 'hood while I was telling the story...whoa!) - and then we started talking about the other marathons we had all run.

Later on I met two women who were running for the charity The Lunch Box Fund which provides lunches to school children in South Africa. I asked how big their charity team was and they told me that I was looking at the team! I don't know if they had tried to register an "official" charity team or not...but either way, they had a cause that they wanted to run for and made it happen. It definitely puts things in perspective - if you want to do something, you don't have to wait for it to happen...just make it happen!

Mile 8 - 10:43 / avg HR 152
Mile 9 - 10:55 / avg HR 151
Mile 10 - 10:44 / avg HR 149

I was now done with the first third of my 10-10-10 marathon strategy. My average HR was in the low 150s and my pace was right around 10:41. Pretty much where I wanted to be. Since my HR was a little on the high side, I decided to try to keep to this pace until the 59th Street Bridge and then see if I could ride the excitement of First Avenue up to the Bronx.

Mile 11 - 10:54 / avg HR 155
Mile 12 - 10:41 / avg HR 153
Mile 13 - 10:37 / avg HR 158
Half Marathon Split - 2:21:30

My Half Marathon split was pretty spot on - about 90 seconds slower than the 2:20 I was shooting for, but so far I wasn't over-taxing myself and I had plenty left in the tank for the second half. I was taking a GU every 45 minutes and drinking plenty of water. Well, perhaps a little too much water, as I really had to pee by this time; however, all of the porta-potties that I ran past had lines - and this was New York City so there were no trees to go behind to take care of business.

At this point, we were entering Queens. I was looking for fellow running-blogger TK who lives in Queens and whose normal running route is over the 59th Street Bridge. I didn't look at my emails since I had left Maryland, so I did not know exactly where she would be. It ends up that I had missed her since I was in the last wave of runners. However, looking for her in Queens gave me more purpose at this part of the run which helped. Also, at this point of the race I heard my phone go off - I had a text message from my sister. She had arrived in the city and was waiting for me at 71st Street and 1st Ave in Manhattan.

Mile 14 - 10:51 / avg HR 159

At around this time, I started to feel a little pain in my right calf. I was telling myself to run through it and the pain will go away - just like it did with the pain in my left foot a few miles earlier. We were about to ascend onto the 59th Street Bridge - which meant I was very familiar with the remainder of the course as I had run it two weeks earlier. I tried to take it easy going up the bridge - just like with the first mile of the course - I could run a slower mile up the bridge and then take the downhill a bit faster to make up for it. For some reason, I ended up getting boxed in a lot while on the bridge - perhaps the course is a bit narrower here as they only use one side of the lower deck of the bridge for the marathon (the other side of the street is empty - likely for emergency personnel to get through...just in case).

For me, there wasn't too much that was memorable on this bridge. However, for teammates JM and TA, this bridge - and this point on the course - will be a lifetime memory and the start of a new chapter of their lives. As they were on the bridge looking at the Manhattan skyline, he proposed to her! Congratulations guys!!!

Coming off the bridge I was anticipating the "wall of sound" of cheering spectators lining the ramp onto First Avenue in Manhattan. I saw the people there, but the cheers were not as loud as I was expecting. Perhaps the cheering was louder earlier and the spectators were just tired by then? I'm not sure what happened, but I have to say that the folks in Brooklyn did a better job greeting runners off their bridge. Manhattan - you have a bit of work to do to catch up with Brooklyn for next year...

One thing that did excite me coming off of the bridge was a long row of porta-potties - many of which showing the lock "on green" meaning they were vacant. Score!

Mile 15 - 11:27 / avg HR 162 (up the bridge)

Mile 16 - 12:27 / avg HR 161 (includes the porta-potty break and a brief stretch of my right calf)

I was now on First Avenue in Manhattan which was lined with spectators on both sides of the street. The throngs of fans rarely thinned out over the four mile stretch of 1st Ave - it seemed that there were people cheering you on constantly from the 59th Street Bridge to the Willis Avenue bridge 70 streets later. The best "pick-me-up" for me was seeing my sister at 71st Street. She had made a big sign - which I had spotted a block and a half away - and was cheering for me like crazy! She brought some extra GU, Larabars and socks - none of which I needed at the time, but I was very appreciative that she brought things for me. Actually, the one thing I really wanted to eat at that point was a banana and she didn't have one with her. We took a picture together and decided we would meet again on 5th Ave and 98th Street.

I continued up First Avenue with some more spring in my step after seeing my sister and with the encouragement of the cheering crowds. My fastest mile of the day was right here on First Ave - Mile 18 in 9:41. When I saw how fast I ran that mile, I decided I needed to slow it back down. I also decided it was time to eat the Larabar that I had on me to get some more calories in my system for my body to burn. My calf muscle - and lower hamstring - was really starting to hurt by this time, so I convinced myself to stretch it out after I finished with mile 19. After a quick calf stretch on a lamp post, I continued up to the Willis Avenue Bridge into the Bronx.

Mile 17 - 11:45 / avg HR 161 (stopped to visit with my sister!)

Mile 18 - 9:41 / avg HR 169 (my fastest mile on the day)

Mile 19 - 10:53 / avg HR 168 (while eating a Larabar)

Mile 20 - 11:26 / avg HR 168 (with stretching my calf muscle)

I knew that the distance spent in the Bronx was a little over a mile. I had just stretched and felt pretty good so I felt I could get through this stretch pretty well. The problem was that after entering into Manhattan again, the pain in my calf and hamstring started to get a lot stronger.

Mile 21 - 10:27 / avg HR 172

Upon entering Manhattan from the Bronx, I stopped at the first water station to walk and stretch again. Once I was walking, though, I didn't want to start running. I decided that from now on I would try to walk for a minute and then run for 10 minutes. This strategy worked and got me running again. In this stretch I saw two more teammates of mine - first LC and then a few minutes later AE. Again it was nice to speak to someone while running to help get our minds off of how much our bodies were hurting at the time.

The other thing that kept me going here was that I knew my sister was waiting for me at 98th Street and Fifth Avenue. I had reached my 10 minutes of running when I hit 101st Street, so I kept going until I reached my sister. Somehow, I still had a smile on my face!

She started to run with me up Fifth Avenue towards the park. I wanted to save some energy for Central Park and the last two miles (and plus, it was time for me to walk anyway, right?) so I had her walk with me for a few blocks. She now had a banana for me and started to peel it, however, at that point I thought I would hurl if I ate a banana. My sister asked the runners near us if anyone wanted the banana and someone immediately yelled "ME!". I was not the only runner my sister helped out on the course that day!

Mile 22 - 11:59 / avg HR 165

Mile 23 - 11:55 / avg HR 158

Mile 24 - 11:56 / avg HR 164

I started to run again as I entered Central Park. I knew there were two miles left to go, but whenever I ran my hamstring really hurt. I was going to try to run as much as I could here, but walk up some of the hills if I needed to. I loved running in Central Park during my training, but now I could not soak in the beauty of the park and the magnificent crowds that were there to cheer on the runners. I had to focus on the task at hand - finishing.

By this time I knew that my 4:40 goal was gone. However, as long as I didn't injure myself I would likely be able to finish with a new PR. I crossed the mile 25 marker and RedG showed somewhere in the 4:37 range. If I could manage a 10:00/mile pace over the final 1.2 miles I could still finish in the 4:40s.

Mile 25 - 11:12 / avg HR 165

I started to push myself as I exited the park onto Central Park South. The crowds were amazing and the energy was electrifying. However, I could only run with the pain for so long - about half way up Central Park South I needed to walk for a block or two. The spectators in the crowd were yelling for me, "Do it FOR NANA!", "Don't Let Nana Down!", etc. With encouragement like that, how could I walk? Of course I got started again and turned the corner into the park.

Once I re-entered the park, I knew there was not much left to the course - and that the ending was uphill. My sister told me that my parents were waiting at the finish line - in the bleachers at Tavern On The Green (I have no idea how my mom finagled her way into the bleachers, however, it did not surprise me one bit that she did...).

I turned on whatever "burners" I had left and booked it to the finish line. I saw my parents in the bleachers on the left side of the course and waved and blew a kiss their way - and then crossed the finish line.

Final Chip Time - 4:51:25

I walked around immediately after the finish to catch my breath and calm down. I then went to get my finisher's medal. The medal was a bit disappointing to me. I was hoping it would have the NY Skyline or the NY Road Runner's logo of a runner in front of a big apple. Instead there was a big 40, since this is the 40th running of the New York Marathon. I'm sure this is not an issue for most people, but given that I just turned 38 this summer and for the first time had some difficulty with my birthday (facing the fact that I'm getting OLD), I'm just a bit sensitive to someone draping a big 40 around my neck. Come on, I'm not 40 yet...get that thing away from me!!! OK, I do love my medal. But this was definitely my first reaction to seeing it.

My plan now was to exit the park, get to my friend's apartment on 70th and Broadway to shower, get my bag and take a cab down to the post-race party at Columbus Circle where my family would be waiting for me. The New York Road Runners had a different plan for me though. I couldn't just "exit the park". I had to walk past tons of baggage trucks with the other hundreds (thousands?) of runners who had just crossed the finish line. Runners were herded like cattle all the way to 77th Street. At least they gave us a bag of food to eat - a PowerBar, an apple, a Gatorade, water, almonds and a bagel.

Exiting the park and getting to my friend's apartment took close to an hour. I spoke to Sherry and she let me know that my Aunt, Uncle and Cousins from New Jersey would not be able to stay much longer at the post-race party so I would not be able to see them :-( I felt bad that they made such an effort - especially with the kids - and that I did not get to see them and thank them for coming to cheer me on.



The next hurdle was that there were NO empty cabs going southbound from my friend's apartment. I thought about taking the bus - but I had asked some of the people waiting at the stop and they mentioned that the last bus did not show yet. I was only 12 blocks away from Columbus Circle - so I decided to walk to the party, bag in tow. I finally made it and celebrated with family members and teammates!



Overall, I really enjoyed my New York Marathon experience. The marathon itself was wonderful - such energy from the screaming fans along the entire course and it was amazing to see how many volunteers they had working the race. The scope of this event is so huge and everything seemed to go smoothly. It was a bit of a bummer to have to wait in the starting area for so long and to have such a slow march to leave the park, but I guess that's what needs to happen to get so many runners staged to start the race and exit the park without much chaos.

I also felt that this race was extra special given that I ran for a cause and with Team Run To Remember. In addition to making the training runs easier by running with a team, I felt that I wasn't out on the course by myself and every time I saw one of my teammates I got a lift. Running with a charity team is definitely something I will consider doing again.

However, I'm not sure when I will run another full marathon again. This distance is really brutal for me. I definitely ran a better race this year than last year, but I still fell apart during the later miles of the race. For now, I think my limit is about 18 miles or 30K. Half marathons, here I come!!!

Massage Therapy!

I don't have time to do the full race report blog post yet, it will come soon...

I have been spending a good amount of time getting back to "normal". I went to the chiro on Monday evening to get adjustments (i.e. back cracking) and to have electro-stim and massage on my right calf / lower hamstring. Yesterday, I had to lead Israeli Dancing in the evening...it was good to move around, but I did not over do it. I also iced my quads a bit as they were still feeling very sore.

By this morning I felt almost 100% - no more wincing while going up and down the stairs, although there was still some soreness in my quads. I had an appointment for a massage which I was totally looking forward to. Except, I forgot that my massage therapist really gets into those tight muscles - which can be more painful in the moment than the soreness I have been experiencing for the past few days.

The massage therapist started with my neck and shoulders for about 5 minutes, and then spent the rest of the hour on my legs. Quads, shins, feet, calves and hamstrings. There was so much going on in the major muscle groups there, that she almost forgot about the little muscle in the back of my right knee - in between the calf and hamstring - which was one of the main reasons I was there in the first place!

I reminded her about it, and she started to dig in...OWWWWW! Perhaps I should have just kept my mouth shut...

The massage therapist has a theory about what happened on Sunday - and during last year's marathon. She noticed that my psoas muscles are really tight and that my right leg is twisted/tilted inward just a tad. She's thinking that the muscles in my right leg that were in pain are probably working extra hard normally to make up for this deficiency - and when I decide to go out and run 26 miles, the muscles are in overload which causes the pain that I'm experiencing. This theory seems to jive with the pelvic instability issue that I was told at the Stride Clinic earlier in the year.

I'll review this assessment with the chiro later this week and see if he agrees. If so, I think I may have a new set of objectives and goals forming right before my eyes...

2009 New York Marathon - The Morning of the Race

I have a few moments this afternoon to blog about the morning of the race...the actual race report will have to wait (sorry folks!). However, more time elapsed from the time I woke up marathon morning to the time I lined up in the gate than during my running of the marathon itself...so there is plenty to talk about!

As I mentioned before, I woke up before my alarm. I had set my watch alarm for 5:35am - which was actually 4:35am due to the switch from Daylight Savings Time. When I woke up, I looked at the time on my friend's cable box and it said 4:25 - I wasn't sure if that was with "falling back" or not...I took a look at my watch which showed 5:25 so I realized that the cable box automatically turned the clock back.

I had laid everything out the night before - running clothes (shirt, shorts, socks, sleeves and hat), RedG and the HRM strap, my water belt, bodyglide, nipple tape, tissues (for both the porta potties and the sinuses), GUs and a Larabar, pre-race food (a bagel, a banana and a single serving container of peanut butter), my throw away sweatshirt (vintage 1990 UofM Greek Week sweatshirt which I probably have not worn in over 15 years - why it was still in my closet I did not know...). I decided not to wear the throw away sweatpants that I had - my friend's apartment was really warm and it had seemed warm enough the night before so I did not think I needed them. I had put my subway card and a few bucks in my RoadID pouch on my shoe also so I would not forget these essentials. As a result, getting ready in the morning was very quick...I had enough time to strip the linen from my friend's sofa bed and fold it back up before leaving.

I walked out to the subway where I was going to meet teammate LG at 5:15am. As I was crossing the street to the station, a car pulled up beside me, "Are you going to the marathon start?" (umm - it's pretty obvious, don'tcha think?) "Do you want a lift?" he asked me. The driver did not look like he was about to run the marathon, and I was wondering what the guy was up to. A bit sketchy if you ask me...even on the Upper West Side. I politely told him that I was meeting other people - thanks, but no thanks.

I met up with LG and we did the subway thing. It was nice to be underground as it was drizzling a bit outside. There were two types of people on the subway and walking around New York at that time. Those in running gear who were getting to their assigned spots to travel to the starting line of the marathon, and those in Halloween costumes who were traveling back home after a night full of partying. Even though the marathoners outnumbered the party revelers at that time, it was still quite a scene.

We made it to Union Square and boarded the team bus. I had met about half of the Team Run To Remember members over the past four months during the various training runs and meetings I came up to New York for, but there wasn't anyone in particular I was planning to sit with on the bus ride. As I boarded the bus, someone from the back yells, "Go BLUE!" upon seeing the big maize and blue M on my sweatshirt - so I went to speak to this fellow UofM runner, BE. He is another out-of-town team member - from Cincinnati - and graduated UofM last year. Also in the back of the bus at that point was teammate JR who I had not met before but immediately started discussing the various iPods we had used - and needed to replace - due to our running madness! A few minutes later another teammate that I had only briefly met before on a training run, CW, sat down next to me and we congratulated each other on our fundraising achievements (she raised over $20K!!) and started to discuss the nerves and adrenaline that were pumping through us at that moment.

The bus took the long way around to Fort Wadsworth - out the Holland Tunnel into New Jersey and then to the Bayonne Bridge into Staten Island. I guess the Verrazano Bridge closed at 7am and the bus driver didn't want to chance not getting over the bridge in time.

Once we arrived at Fort Wadsworth, there was a small sea of people being dropped off of busses and waiting in line to enter the "runner's village". It must have taken us about 20 minutes to get through this line and enter. Most of the team stayed together and gathered in the common area before dispersing to our different color start areas. We posed for a group picture - there were 3 or 4 people taking photos with everyone's cameras...one of the "photographers" was a foreigner who would say "PERRRRRFECT" each time he took a photo. It got a laugh from the entire team every time!

A few of us went to get some food and coffee - unfortunately, we trekked through a muddy patch of field instead of following the non-muddy streets...we knew which way NOT to take back to the team site! While looking for bagels, teammate TA met Tara from last season's The Biggest Loser and took a picture with her to show to the rest of the team...very cool!

We all got back to the group and ate, schmoozed and tried to keep warm. About half an hour later, the group started to break up to head toward their different color areas - and some of the runners in the earlier waves needed to hit their starting corrals. It was definitely a bittersweet moment - we were all about to embark on this awesome event that we all had spent the last four to five months preparing for. However, this also marked the end of the team being together.

As someone who was a bit of an "outsider" at the beginning - I'm not from New York and I am not active in the NY Alzheimer's Association chapter - I found that this team gelled very well. I think it was a perfect size - large enough to raise a sum of money that justifies the hard work needed to organize the team and also large enough to sustain all of the training runs/meetings of the team, but small enough that all the members get an opportunity to meet everyone in the group and that the team could take on its own identity without having sub-teams or cliques. I really enjoyed every moment that I had with this team - from my Central Park training runs in August and September, to the meeting I attended when Liz Robbins spoke about her book, to the training run over the last 10 miles of the marathon course, to all of the time spent in the hours leading up to the race. I will really miss the members of this team, and I hope to keep in touch with many of them (and perhaps run with them again!).

I went to the orange runners area and met up with my college friend ZF. She immediately recognized the UofM Greek Week sweatshirt (and was pretty amazed that I still had it!). She had been hanging out in one of the tents with another friend of hers for hours - they had arrived at Fort Wadsworth at 6:30am and it was now about 9:30. About 10 minutes later we heard the cannon go off and we were able to see the runners on the bridge. WOW!

We took a quick Brightroom photo with the Verrazano Bridge in the background. I'm not sure why I did this - I definitely will want the memories, but Brightroom charges so much for the photos it's ridiculous! If they charged something reasonable I would consider purchasing the prints or buying the downloads...but until then it's going to be screen captures with the "Copyright" message going across...

Then it was one last trip to the porta-potty (and thank goodness I brought my own tissues...too much information???) before heading to the corrals and lining up for the start of the New York Marathon!

The Hours Leading Up To The NY Marathon...

I'm still collecting my thoughts from the marathon, so I'm not going to post my race report yet. However, since I did not have a computer with me in New York, I never got a chance to post about what happened leading up to the marathon.

The Cranky Knee

The main event in the 36 hours leading up to the big race was....a cranky knee.

Yes - a few hours after my last run on Friday afternoon, my left knee started to hurt. UGH! The more I walked, the worse it felt. Unfortunately, I wasn't getting much rest since I was going up and down stairs trying to pack and get ready to go up to New York. I iced my knee for a bit on Friday night before going to bed, but it was still cranky on Saturday.

Saturday started out with not too much moving around - I was driving up to Wayne, NJ for four hours, and then taking the bus in from Wayne to NYC. However, after that there was lots of walking - from the bus to the subway, from the subway to my friend's apartment, then back to the subway and to the expo, to and from the pre-race feast at Carmines, etc. All through the walking around the city on Saturday afternoon, my knee had this cranky pain. I iced it again on Saturday evening, hoping that it would feel better by Sunday morning. I knew that I would just have to run through it on Sunday if it was still there - but I didn't know how long it would be before the pain would get really bad.

When I woke up on Sunday morning, the first thing I checked when getting out of bed was my left knee. It felt fine. The ice had done its job. Thank goodness!

Expo Anxiety

Every email that I had received in the past week mentioned that we needed to have a printed copy of our Runner's Registration Form to get into the expo. I printed mine immediately and ensured it was in my duffel when I packed for New York. I decided to take the subway from my friend's apartment to the Javits Center - which meant walking about 4 blocks over and 3 blocks up (with that cranky knee...). As I stood directly across the street from the Javits Center, it hit me...I had left the darn Registration Form in my duffel bag at my friend's apartment. Oh NO!!!! I called up my friend to see if he could find an internet cafe or Kinko's near the Javits Center so I could go in, pull up the email and print it out. All the Kinko's in the area were closed on Saturdays and no luck on Internet Cafes. He suggested some of the hotels near Penn Station, so off I went, walking back towards 34th Street and 7th Ave. After a block of walking, I decided to call Coach Brian - did I really need the Registration Form? He informed me that there was a special services desk at the expo that would look up my information and print the form for me. No need to go back and get the form. Saved! Thanks Coach Brian!!!

The expo was definitely a lot more impressive than the expo at the Frederick Marathon :-) However, I didn't get all jazzed up about it. Perhaps it was because I was there so late in the game (I arrived about 3:30pm on Saturday - it has already been open on Thursday and Friday and was closing in less than 2 more hours) so there were no speakers or "events" happening at the time I was there. I was interested in purchasing a Mizuno Breath Thermo top, but by that time there were no more in my size (I'll have to pay full price at Fleet Feet sometime soon...). I did purchase a hat for Sherry and a pair of running gloves that had the names of all five boroughs on each of the five fingers - I know I'm going to love running in those this winter!

Pre-Race Dinner

Team Run To Remember held their pre-race dinner at Carmine's. It was a great chance for the team to celebrate our accomplishments - over $325K raised and 75% of the team running their first marathon - and to give our appreciation to our wonderful coaches. There were some speeches at the beginning from board members of the NY City Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association and also a special appearance from David Hyde Pierce who is a big supporter of the Alzheimer's Association. David Hyde Pierce started off his speech with a comment like, "you all are the only skinny people at Carmine's..."

I soon would understand what he meant. There was a three-course meal - first course was garlic bread and three types of salads, second course was four types of pasta dishes and the last course was dessert. All of the family-style portions were ENORMOUS! At a normal dinner I likely could have stopped after the salads. But of course I loaded up on pasta too. And had a little bit of the desserts. I was stuffed.

Since I was so uncomfortably full, I wanted to walk a bit to help digest. I started walking with teammate LG and a few of her running friends who were all going to the Upper West Side. We were going to walk to the subway station on 50th and then all go uptown. However, when we got to the station, we found out it was closed. Back to the 42nd Street station we went (and yes, my knee was still cranky at the time). Except at that point it started to rain.

Party Pooper

I finally got back to my friend's apartment and was quite wet from the rain outside. They were having a little Halloween party with friends that night - their apartment is a few blocks from Central Park and you can see the pre-Marathon fireworks from their window, so they invited some friends over to celebrate. It was nice to meet their friends and schmooze. I would have loved to join them in their wine, beer and other drinks, but I stuck to water. At around 10:15pm I reminded my friend that I needed to get some sleep and would appreciate if they would continue the party elsewhere around 11pm. It wasn't a problem with him - or with the guests - but it just felt odd to be kicking my friend out of his own place so I could get some sleep.

I was really tired by then and crashed pretty quickly. I had set my watch to go off at 4:35am so I could get to the subway by 5:15am. The team bus was meeting at Union Square at 6am. As usual with my anxious anticipation, I woke up before my alarm went off.

To be continued soon with the marathon day experience....

New Marathon PR!!!

I finished the NY Marathon today in:

4:51:32 (Garmin time)

It's a new PR for me!!! It was a little over 10 minutes slower than my goal time, but I started having the same upper calf/lower hamstring issue that I had in my first marathon.

I'll try to get a full race report out by mid-week...

All Packed And Ready To Go!

I have packed up my duffel - with likely a bit too much and also likely something missing (I almost ALWAYS forget something when I go out of town!).

The plan is to head out as early as we can tomorrow and drive up to our friend's place in Wayne, NJ. Sherry and the kids will stay there on Saturday while I take a bus into the city. Once I'm in the city I will drop my bag off at my friend's apartment and then hit the Expo to get my bib and timing chip!!!

I'll have an hour or so to hang out before the Team Run To Remember carbo-loading fest at Carmine's.

Then back to my friend's place to get my stuff ready for the morning and to crash.

I don't know if I'll be able to post a blog update before the marathon...I'll try to post a quick one after the marathon with my time and then hopefully by Monday night with a full race report.

Now it's time to hit the sack!

The Final Run Before The Big Day!

I was feeling a bit antsy today (ummm - taper!) so I went out for a 3 mile run at lunchtime. I did my usual 3 mile lake loop - which was the same route that I used for my first run in the training program for this marathon on June 29. It's a nice close to my marathon training with "bookends" of the same route.

I ran with RedG but without the heart rate monitor. It was just me, my footfalls and the breeze of a cool, overcast autumn afternoon.

3.21 miles in 32:17 - a 10:04/mile pace (for those scoring at home...June 29 was run in a 10:40/mile pace).

I thought a bit more about strategy for the marathon. I'm thinking of using the 10-10-10 breakdown. For the first 10 miles I will try to keep my heart rate under 150 - and hopefully closer to 145. I know this will be pretty difficult after mile 5, but the more I can keep my heart rate low during this part of the race, the better I'll be later. The next 10 miles will take me to the Bronx, and with the exception of the 59th Street Bridge, this should be a sea of cheering spectators. I intend to "let go" of the HRM monitoring here and just run by feel - still not trying to over do it.

The last 10K I have broken into smaller chunks: the Bronx, from the Madison Ave Bridge to where Central Park starts, along 5th Ave until the entrance to Central Park (uphill), entering Central Park to exiting the park at Central Park South, along Central Park South to Columbus Circle, and finally Columbus Circle to the Finish Line! At this point I will likely focus on these six pieces and try to get through each one with a countdown.

If I can hold to my strategy, I should do well and feel good after the race.

Who Me? Obsessed With The Weather???

In pure taper madness, I've been checking the NY weather ten times a day.

Now there is a 30% chance of rain before noon...i.e. while we're sitting still and waiting at Fort Wadsworth to start. Lovely.

Don't Go Out Too Fast...

My concern over the past 3 weeks has been my "faster" pace on my runs and how I want to run slow and controlled on marathon day.

It looks like I'm not the only one who is concerned about going out too fast...

Awesome Run In The Sun and CRAZY EIGHTS!

It had rained all Tuesday and most of Wednesday morning. However, there was a brief break around lunchtime on Wednesday...and I took full advantage of it!

My goal was to take it easy (this IS taper week, right?), not to worry about pace but just to follow whatever my heart rate was telling me.

Well, I started to get those false (i.e. HIGH) readings in the first half mile again. How is my heart rate 171 bpm when I'm doing a light jog??? I decided to stop at a light pole and do some calf stretches...within 20 seconds my HRM was showing 108 bpm. I started up again and never saw the high readings for the remainder of my run!

The workout was spectacular! A sunny afternoon day, 65 degrees with a little breeze, leaves in all shades of red, orange and yellow falling from the trees...can I order this exact weather for Sunday in NY??

Splits were:
Mile 1: 10:31 / Avg HR 145 (that's with the false readings during the first half mile)
Mile 2: 10:26 / Avg HR 142
Mile 3: 9:40 / Avg HR 145
Mile 4: 10:14 / Avg HR 148
Last half mile 10:50 pace with avg HR of 150.

Overall a 10:17/mile pace with average HR of 146. If I can do this for the first 15 miles on Sunday I will be in such awesome shape to finish nice and STRONG!

When I logged my run in RunningAhead, I saw something very cool:

My yearly mileage is 888.8 miles! CRAZY EIGHTS! (OK...I have to think about something crazy, I'm in marathon taper mode...)

Getting Ready - Where/When/How To Find Me On The Course

The Alzheimer's Association team coaches sent out a spreadsheet where you enter your predicted finishing time and your start time and it calculates when you'll arrive at each mile on the course (OK, I will NOT be running an even paced marathon, but it is a good guideline to family and friends who want to see me).

So, if you want to cheer for me this weekend, this is likely what I'll be wearing (with bib 56258):


And here is where I'll be when (approximately):


You can also get email notifications of when I cross the timing mats by signing up here (and I'm bib number 56258!).

Taper Craziness - Obsessing About The Weather

As running mileage decreases to almost nothing during taper week, you end up obsessing on things to fill the time.

When I'm not getting anxious about what I'm going to forget when I go up to New York, it seems I'm thinking about what the weather will be on Sunday in New York.

I just looked at the 5-day forecast this morning, and it looks pretty good:

I Was Reminded Today That I Don't Like Running On The Treadmill

I had time to run during lunch. An easy 4 miler.

I got into my running clothes and out the front door and....it was really yucky outside. Rain. Cool temperatures. Ick.

Normally I would run in this, but with the marathon this weekend I really didn't feel like hitting the elements. I would definitely run in this stuff on Sunday if I needed to - but no need to do it today.

I hopped in my car to go to the gym.

I had totally forgotten how boring the treadmill is. It had been a good 5 to 6 weeks since I ran on the treadmill, and now I see why. I kept on longing to be outside. I know where I'll be running most of the winter...

The run was decent - 4 miles in 41:05 - a 10:17/mile pace with average HR of 150.

Only one or two more short runs before the marathon. Whoa!

Sleep, Glorious Sleep!

Last night I did not have to work during the maintenance window - and I took full advantage of it. I was in bed by 9:30pm!

I had laid out clothes to run this morning - thinking that I would likely wake up after six hours of sleep and then toss and turn until it was a reasonable hour to run (5:15am??? 5:30am???)

Instead, I woke up at 6:10 when I heard the kids starting to argue.

I can't remember the last time I slept close to 9 hours straight. I must have needed it!

The downside to sleeping in past 6am is that I did not get my run in this morning. I'll see what my schedule is this afternoon and see if I can squeeze it in...

For Those Wacky Parents Out There

Here's an excerpt of the book my seven-year-old son was reading before bed tonight. It got a big laugh out of both of us...and unfortunately, this is soooo true:

It's been said that adults spend the first two years of their children's lives trying to make them walk and talk...

...and the next sixteen years trying to get them to sit down and shut up.

Tapering And Weight Management - Update

Two weeks ago, I wrote a blog post where I said I would be counting calories to ensure that I did not gain any weight during the taper. Last year I had gained a few pounds while I decreased the mileage in the weeks leading to the marathon, and I didn't want to repeat that.

Here's an update...

The good news - I have actually dropped two pounds! I am now one pound away from my marathon weight of last year. I'll take it, even though it was not my intent.

The not-so-good news (I guess?) - all last week I did not count calories at all. My schedule was all messed up due to working nights and I had no idea how to count calories consumed in the midnight to 6am shift. If I work Sunday night, do I count these against Sunday's total or Monday's total? When I wake up at 11:30am (after going to bed at 7am), do I eat breakfast food or lunch food?

Another issue is how do I count the amount of sleep I get? Last night I slept from 10pm to 11:30pm before working and then from 7am to 11am this morning after work. Does that count as five and a half hours of sleep? Or is this four hours? How much sleep do I need to make up at the end of the week to be well rested for the race???

Luckily, it looks like tonight may be the last of the late nights for me. It will be good to be back on a normal sleeping - and eating - schedule soon!

The Last Long Run Before The Race

This morning was the last long run of my taper - and the last long run before next week's New York Marathon. Whoa!

I was really excited to get out there and run long today. I had run a 6, 5 and 3 miler this week and I longed for something a bit more substantial. Since it is still the taper, I couldn't overdo it, however, I decided that something in between 8 and 10 miles would do.

I settled on my 9-mile Olde Town Gaithersburg loop. I also decided to wear the outfit which I will likely wear next Sunday for the marathon - my Alzheimer's Association Run To Remember white t-shirt and white arm-warmer sleeves along with my water belt. This was the first time I ran with the sleeves - they are definitely more snug on the arms than a long-sleeve shirt, but I like the fact that if I get hot during the race that I can take the sleeves off and run in a short-sleeve shirt. I'm not sure if I'm going to wear my water belt for the marathon or not. I know there are water stations almost every mile on the course, but if I have my belt then I can drink when I want to.

It was a great morning to run - clear skies and temperatures in the upper 40s. If the start of the marathon is like this I will be very happy!

Also, if I run the first 9 miles of the marathon like I ran this morning I should be in pretty good shape to finish strong. My heart rate was a little higher than I wanted it to be - my average HR on this morning's run was 153...I would like it to be under 150 for the first 10-13 miles next week. My pace was also a bit faster than I want it to be next week - 10:26/mile. I will really try to keep it nice and slow at that beginning next weekend.

Now it's waiting time. I'll do a few short runs this week - 2 or 3 milers - but the next big run will be marathon Sunday!!!

Fundraising Update - I Reached My Goal!!!

Yesterday I finally reached my goal of $5,000 raised for the Alzheimer's Association!!!

Donations are still trickling in - and I hope that they will continue up until the date of the marathon. At this pace I'll probably be close to $6,000 by the time it is all said and done.

BTW, I had set a second goal of having 100 separate donors and I am very close to that too with 96 right now!!!!

If you haven't donated yet, please visit here to be my 97th, 98th, 99th or 100th donor!!!! :-)

I Got Some Sleep! Finally!!!

During last night's work activities, there was another person from my group supporting the upgrade. At around 2am I called him up and asked if we really needed both of us. I had been up all night without him the night before so I asked him if he would continue and allow me to get some sleep. He agreed to this (thank goodness!)

I ended up sleeping from about 2:30am until 10am - with a bit of interruption in the 7am to 7:30am timeframe as Sherry and the kids were getting ready for school. That's seven hours of sleep! Hooray!!!

I woke at 10am and figured I had time for a quick run before an 11am conference call. I wanted to do 4 miles, but I decided that I wouldn't be able to fit it in so I did my 3 mile lake loop instead.

I got off to a peppy start - probably due to the tunes I had blasting on my iPod. As I got to my first uphill portion, I started to attack the hill - so this went from an easy run to a hill-attacking run pretty quickly. I was hoping to use the downhills and level portions of the run as recovery stretches, but that never really happened.

3.13 miles at a 9:44/mile pace. Average HR 155. This was definitely right in the middle between an easy run and a tempo run...kind of a "no-man's land" of running terminology.

I made it to my desk in plenty of time for my 11am conference call...back to work!

New Battery For My HRM and Marathon Pace Run

I've been complaining about the fact that RedG's heart rate monitor has been giving me some crazy readings for the past few weeks. Mostly on the first mile or mile and a half and then it's fine - but I'm afraid that this is when I will need to use my HRM to control my pace the most on November 1.

I finally decided to get a new battery yesterday. Installing it was very easy - just turn the cover with a coin, pop the old battery out, put the new one in and put the cover back on...or so I thought.

I was all ready to go out for my run today (at lunchtime which was first thing in the morning for me today...) - I looked down at RedG and the Heart Rate field was blank. The little heart icon on the top was alternating flashing with an "X".

Now I felt like crap. Why do I always have to go toying with things to make them "better" and I end up breaking something and having to spend more time and/or money to fix them!

I had no MacGyver moment for this one. I ran upstairs to get the Owner's Manual (I know...very unlike me. I'm used to tinkering with things for a good 10 hours before resorting to the manual). A quick search of the manual and I was looking at the HRM troubleshooting section and it mentioned something about "pairing" devices. Got it - when I swapped the battery, somehow RedG thinks the HRM strap is a new device. I navigated through the Garmin menu to re-scan for the heart rate monitor strap, and now the heart rate field was no longer blank. HOORAY!

The new battery seems to work, too. Mile 1 of today's run (mostly uphill) I had an average heart rate of 144 and max of 157. No more readings in the 180s while I'm doing a slow jog :-)

My goal today was a 6 mile marathon pace run. I'm shooting for a 4:40 marathon which is a 10:40/mile pace. Most of my runs lately have been a lot faster than this, so the goal today was to SLOW DOWN.

I got into a nice rhythm during the first mile. I chose to do my normal 6 mile loop in reverse so I could go uphill for most of this mile - just like going uphill on the Verrazano Bridge during the first mile. However, my rhythm was just a tad too fast as RedG chirped a 10:20 at me. Mile 2 was mostly downhill, and although I felt like I slowed down, I ran another 10:19.

I decided that I had to make an effort on the next mile to really slow down and get my pace in the 10:40 range. The next two miles were 11:05 and 11:10 - and I was now on pace! And my average HR was still in the 140s. Woo hoo!

One thing toward the end of the run did concern me a bit. Mile 6 which is pretty much all uphill, I ran in 10:35, but my average HR was 165 (max of 179). I'm all for attacking the hills, but I'm hoping that something like this in the middle of the NY Marathon (i.e. the 59th Street Bridge) doesn't gas me for later on.

Overall, I ran the 6.25 miles at a 10:37/mile pace. My average HR was 151. Not too shabby, but I was hoping for a lower heart rate with this pace. Perhaps it was the warm weather (72 degrees at noon when I ran) or perhaps it was the lack of sleep this week.

To put myself at ease, I took a look in my running log at the last time I ran this route. In late June I ran this as a long run. The temperature that day was also 72 degrees. My pace was 11:25/mile and my average HR was 154. It is nice to see how far I have come in 4 months of training... even on a "bad" day!

Time To Make The Donuts...

OK...it's 5:45am and I'm still at my desk monitoring a software upgrade. I'm normally just waking up about now to go out for a run.

In my delirious state, I'm thinking I may bump into myself on the way back into the house to go to sleep (my office is over the garage which is detached from the house...I actually have to go outside the back door to get to the office) as my "other" self is leaving the house for a run.

Just like in this classic commercial

Lack Of Sleep

As I wrote earlier in the week, I have been working on some upgrades this week which means maintenance window work. There have been a few issues that need to be resolved during the upgrades, so activities keep on being scheduled for subsequent nights - and I'll be working again tonight.

The most amount of consecutive hours of sleep I've gotten since Saturday night has been four. However, it has mostly been two hours of sleep here - two hours of sleep there. All at strange hours that my body is not used to (9pm to 11pm, 5am to 7am, 10am to noon, etc.).

There's a possibility that I could go for a run this afternoon - when I take my older son to his tennis lesson I could just run during the lesson (and then quickly shower when I get home before going to rehearsal for the Israeli Dance Troupe that I co-direct).

However, I've decided not to do it today. I'm starting to feel a bit run down.

I've lined up for my folks to take my younger one to nursery school tomorrow morning - that should allow me a few extra hours of sleep since I won't be "on duty" from 7am to 9:30am. I may even get a normal amount of sleep! (even if the hours are shifted...)

If I can get some good sleep, I hope to get a run in at some point tomorrow.

HRM Needs New Battery, Or Lack Of Sleep?

I finally got out for a run today after missing yesterday.

As I started, I felt really "rusty". It seemed like a long time since my last run. I thought about this more and my last run was on Saturday morning. I had missed two days of running and I'm feeling rusty. Yikes! What am I going to do post-marathon???

My goal for today's run - take it easy. Try to hit a 10:40 pace. Slow down.

I kind of succeeded. My pace was slower than most of my recent runs - a 10:15/mile pace over 5.5 miles. My first two mile splits were 10:26 and 10:42. Mile 3 has a good amount of downhill in it and I ran a 9:53. Then a 10:27 and 10:20.

The weird part, though, is that my heart rate stayed above 150 bpm for most of the run. Even when I was running the slower miles.

Either I really need to change the battery in the chest strap (I have been saying this for about 2 weeks, so hopefully I'll get to it before my next run...) or the lack of sleep due to maintenance window activities at work has run me down a bit.

Since I'm still working nights at least through tonight and maybe tomorrow night too, I think we'll have to check the battery issue out first.

No Run Today - Life On Overload

Maintenance window activities went until close to 5am last night. I slept from 5am to 7am thinking that I would be able to go back to bed around 9:30 once my little one was at pre-school. WRONG!

He wasn't feeling well. Was going to the bathroom all morning. I stayed home to watch him (I had one conference call that I needed to be on, otherwise I checked email when I could). When Sherry got home and took his temperature, he had 102 (why didn't I think of taking his temperature while I was with him all morning?).

I finally got two more hours of sleep from 1pm to 3pm, until I was woken up by a customer call.

In less than an hour I have my fundraiser at Noodles & Co (hooray!) and then I'm back to work for maintenance window activities again tonight.

I was thinking that I could possible run in between the fundraiser and going back to work...however, I may want to get 2 more hours of sleep instead. Sleep will most likely win out in this case.

Needing To Change My Running Schedule Due To Work

For the past two years in my job I was working on building a new wireless network for one of our customers. It definitely had its headaches along the way, but the great thing about working on a new network is that almost all work can be done during the day.

My current projects involve live networks. So whenever anything needs to be upgraded or changed, it needs to be done at night...just in case something goes down, there will be fewer subscribers that are impacted.

So tonight I get to start a conference bridge at midnight and start my Monday activities. Ick.

I'm still on duty to drive my younger one to nursery school in the morning too. So I'll either get a few hours of sleep before that - if the nighttime activities go quickly - or I'll go to bed around 10am.

So the big question is - when do I run?

I doubt it will be at my normal 5:30am or 6am. Perhaps after I wake up later today - around 2pm or so??

What Defines A PR???

We runners love numbers. Many of us keep meticulous training logs - in mine I track mileage, pace, average and maximum heart rate, which courses, which shoes (and accumulated mileage on my shoes) and weather - and I may have missed one or two pieces of data.

One thing that stands in the foreground of most runner's running logs is their list of Personal Records, or PRs, from races they have run.

Currently my list is:

Distance	Time	Pace	Event	Date
5 km	25:17	8:09	Kentlands 5K Race - New Course	8/30/2008
10 km	56:14	9:03	Pike's Peek	4/23/2006
Half Marathon	2:13:22.79	10:11	Run For The Shelter Half Marathon	4/19/2009
Marathon	4:59:06	11:25	Frederick Marathon	5/4/2008

However, during a few of my training runs, I have run faster than my PRs at the 10K and Half Marathon distances.

Do these become new PRs? Or should PRs only be for races or time trials dedicated to seeing how fast you can run a certain distance?

What's your thought?

One Last Run In New York Before The Marathon

When I first received my materials for Team Run To Remember, I was a little bummed out that I would not be able to participate in most of the "team" activities. There were weekly training runs and periodic meetings throughout the four months and since I was an out-of-towner I would be missing out on these.

I decided to try to come up for at least a few of these events and planned to get to a group run in August, a meeting in September (which I went up a day early to hit another group run) and then today's group run in October - where the team would be running the last 10 miles of the marathon course together.

I wanted to get 30 miles in this week - and so far I had about 16.5, so I was hoping for a little over 13 miles. Since the group was running 10, I decided to get there a bit early and run the 59th Street Bridge into Queens and then back into Manhattan. Coach Brian was more than willing to do this with me :-)

One thing about the bridge - it was windy. It was a 42 degree morning, but with the breeze up there made it feel about 10 degrees colder. I'm glad I wore my Frederick Marathon pullover - since the temperatures were still in the 40s I almost didn't wear it, but with the wind on the bridges I'm glad I had it on.

After the bridge, Coach Brian and I saw the Alzheimer's group. There was actually another group running the last 10 miles of the marathon route as well this morning...it was a much larger group with coaches, pace setters and each of the participants wore bib numbers. A little over the top for a training run, but they were out there for the same reason we were - to get familiarity with the course and gain some confidence.

First of all, I must say that running with others really makes the time go by quickly. It did not seem like I ran for over 2 hours this morning. Hopefully during the race I'll be able to find other people around me to chat with...or maybe even try to run with other team members.

I really like the members of the team that I have met. Today I ran with Coach Brian, JM, LJ and MC and in the past runs I have run with Coach Jeff, EE and MM. Everyone I have met on the team is very friendly, wonderful to run with and talk to. It will be sad to not have the team after the marathon in a few weeks...although I can definitely see keeping in touch with some of my teammates.

As for the run, for me it was very worthwhile. I think on marathon day I will be breaking down the last 10 miles into four parts - 1) 1st Ave, 2) The Bronx, 3) Getting to Central Park and 4) Central Park...the home stretch. The first part - going up 1st Ave - is a little over 3 miles. I hear that the crowd support during this stretch is amazing, so this portion should go relatively well. The Bronx is pretty short - a little over a mile...maybe a mile and a half - and I hear the crowds will not be as good here. This will be mile 20 in the race so this will be tough. However, the bridges are not steep and I actually like to run near water and over bridges...since there are two of these in about a 1 mile span I think I should do OK in the Bronx.

Part 3 is getting to Central Park. This is only about a mile, but today it seemed to be the part that dragged on for me. Maybe there will be crowd support on race day...I'm not sure. If not, then 5th Ave from 138th St to 110th St will be a tough mile and a half.

The home stretch and last three and a half miles is Central Park. The first mile or so is down 5th Ave - or should I say UP 5th Ave?? There is a pretty constant incline at this point - the race's elevation chart shows about a 100 ft rise over about a half a mile. Soon after that you enter the park. Once I enter the park I know that I'll be running on adrenaline. For today's run, this was mile 12 and 13 for me and these miles were run at 9:27 and 9:33. I don't expect to run that fast when this is mile 25 and 26, but I know it will be a "pick-me-up" to be in the park and nearing the end.

The stats for me - 13.7 miles in 2:16:32, a 9:59/mile pace. My PR for a Half Marathon was run in a 10:11/mile pace...so in the span of a week I have beat my 10K PR and HM PR during training runs. Wow!

One thing I may mention - the second and third toe on my right foot has some pain when I try to bend them. I felt this last week after my long run and it hasn't really gone away. The pain isn't bad - I can still run on it - but whenever I try to bend those toes it definitely hurts a bit and they are tender to the touch. I'll continue to monitor them and have them checked out after the marathon if it doesn't get better.

Taking Time To Remember

One of the main reasons I'm running the NY Marathon - and raising money for the Alzheimer's Association - is in memory of my Nana.

When I started this journey over four months ago, I wanted to do three things leading up to the race - 1) train for the race, 2) raise money for the Alzheimer's Association and 3) do some activities which will help me to remember my Nana.

I have been very diligent on items 1 and 2 so far. Unfortunately, I have not taken the time for item 3. Last night I finally started.

The other day I saw that HBO Family was airing a show called "The Alzheimer's Project: Grandpa, Do You Know Who I Am?" so I had my DVR record it. I was about to cue up "Glee" for Sherry and me to watch last night when I saw this show in the list. Since Sherry was not ready yet, I decided to watch it.

The 30 minute show interviews a bunch of children ranging in age from 6 to 15 who have grandparents with Alzheimer's disease. Some of the grandparents are in early stages - grandpa forgets the grandkid's names or names of places, but he is still getting around fine and understands what is going on around him...it's just that the words to describe these people or places seem to have "disappeared". Other grandparents are in much later stages - confined to wheelchairs, barely speaking, not even recognizing their loved ones. It was a powerful show and a great way for tweens and teens to understand what the disease is and why their grandparents are acting the way that they are.

The show opened up a pandora's box of emotions for me. I saw my Nana in all of those stages. I was a bit too young to remember the early stages of the disease, but I do have distinct memories of her at that time....I just had no idea that her memory was going and that she was becoming very paranoid.

I have too many memories of the later stages of the disease. I remember visiting Nana at the nursing home. I remember when we would have funny conversations (I once tried to explain to her about my new Atari video game and she was really confused as to how the players got inside the television!). Unfortunately, I remember as a tween and then as a teen it got to the point where she was too confused to carry on a conversation - and then to the point where she couldn't talk much at all.

Tonight I may have a chance to continue to evoke memories of my Nana. I am driving up to the NY area and staying with my cousin tonight. He was the oldest of my Nana's grandparents so he probably has the most vivid memories of her before the disease took hold. I'm hoping we can spend some time (between innings of the Yankees game?) reminiscing of times we had with our Nana.

Running In The Cold Rain

This morning it was cold and rainy. Yuck! This is my least favorite weather to run in.

I had contemplated running on the treadmill at the gym. However, I know that I'll be running in the same stuff on Saturday morning. And I better get used to this just in case this is the weather on November 1, right? I can't go to Mary Whittenburg and ask if she can move the NY Marathon indoors on a treadmill because it is 40 degrees and raining!

The one nice thing about my run this morning - I did it after the sunrise! The reason for this - not so good. My younger son still had a fever last night and came into our room at 3:30am. He still had a 101.4 temperature. At that point my wife made the decision that she was not going to go to work - so I was able to sleep in a bit, get my older son off to school in his carpool and then go out for a run!

I threw on my Frederick marathon runners premium - a microfiber pull-over - over my long sleeve running t-shirt and shorts, along with a hat to keep my head a bit warmer. I also brought music with me for the first time in a while - I loaded a bunch of Indigo Girls albums on my iPod shuffle...good mellow music for an easy run.

I started the run out easy - average HR was 141 for the first mile (perhaps the HRM issue has cleared itself up?) and RedG chirped a 9:54 split. I slowed down a bit for the second mile and came in with a 10:12 split. All this time I had my hands inside the sleeves of the pullover to keep them warm. It's amazing how damp, cold air just penetrates you and chills you to the bone.

After that, my route goes downhill and I started to warm up. Hands came out of the pullover's sleeves and I guess my legs decided to push the pace on me. I still kept RegG covered so he didn't get too wet, but as a result I was not watching my heart rate go up into the high 150s/low 160s. Next two splits were 9:12 and 9:18. So much for an easy run!

I finished out my 5.5 mile loop in 53:27 - a 9:36/mile pace with an average HR of 154. I looked back in RunningAhead at my training log and with the exception of a tempo run I did on this route last year, this is the fastest I have every run this route.

The good news - I'm in great shape right now...probably even better shape than I was before I ran the Frederick Marathon last year!

The bad news - OK...not so bad, but I have been running way too fast lately. Over the next two weeks I need to devote at least two workouts at marathon pace - which for me this time around will be a 10:40/mile pace. If I try running "by feel" like I have been the last week, I'm going to fall apart at mile 16.

Speedwork Or No Speedwork?

I wasn't feeling like I could handle a speedwork workout today.

I don't know if it was the lack of sleep (went to bed late last night after Israeli Dancing and woke up early as my little one has a fever), the fact that I got my flu shot on Monday and my body is adjusting to that, or if it just because it is a cold, gray, blah type of day.

I was ready for a lunchtime run outside, but I didn't want to go to the track for an interval workout and I didn't want to put it all out on the line like last week's tempo run.

So I decided to make it an easy run. The plan - start at Fitness First, go across Quince Orchard Rd to Great Seneca Hwy, down Great Seneca to Muddy Branch, across to Rt 28 and back up to Fitness First. I was thinking it was somewhere in the 6-7 mile range...in the end Garmin told me it was 5.4.

BTW...I think I have come up for a name for my Garmin. I will now refer to him as RedG (pronounced Reggie, right?) in the blog instead of "my Garmin", "the Garmin", "Garmin Forerunner 305", etc. Not as cute as some of the other bloggers' pet names (Little G, Garmy, etc.) but the name definitely fits.

As I have been finding out too often, sometimes plans go by the wayside.

I thought I was taking it easy during mile 1. The heart rate monitor is still a little messed up at the beginning of my runs (note to self - change that battery already!) so I couldn't judge how I was doing by heart rate...so I was just going by feel. Well, that easy pace that I felt was 9:38.

OK...well, I'll slow down during mile 2, right? The heart rate monitor is now working and I'm in the low 140s / high 130s for a good part of it. Yes, it is downhill but I'm sure I'm going a bit slower.

RedG chirps out 9:05. Same thing for mile 3 (also mostly downhill) - 9:10.

I guess this is a tempo run, boys and girls!

So I started hoofing out miles 4 and 5. Both of these are mostly UP-hill (for those who live in the area - Route 28 from Muddy Branch to Quince Orchard). Splits were 8:41 and 8:39.

The final (up-hill) 0.4 was run at a 8:47 pace.

So much for an easy run... I'll try again tomorrow morning!

Fundraising Milestones

As a group, Team Run To Remember has now raised over $200,000 for the Alzheimer's Association!

I am 85% to my goal - with $4,270 (this includes a few checks that are in the mail).

What is amazing is that I just received a donation from a 75th person!

So...I have set a new goal for myself. Not only will I try to hit $5,000 in total donations, but I will also try to receive donations from at least 100 donors.

The marathon is in less than three weeks. For those of you reading this and have not donated yet - please visit my fundraising page and help me get to 100 donors and $5,000!

Tapering and Weight Management

One thing that I have not worried too much about in training for this marathon has been weight management.

Last year when I started training for the Frederick marathon, I was also trying to lose 10 pounds at the beginning of my training program. I counted my calories - and posted them in my blog to keep myself accountable - and I ripped off 8 pounds in about 5 or 6 weeks. However, as my mileage started to increase I had a week where I felt weak, lethargic and my runs were getting tough at the end. I dropped the calorie counting and let my body dictate how much I needed to eat - I started feeling better and I pretty much maintained my weight.

Until the taper.

You see, during the taper period my weekly mileage decreased substantially...but my appetite did not. I ended up gaining a few of those pounds back in those last 3 weeks. It didn't help for the big run.

Fast forward to this year's training. I paid no attention to my calories at all. I have dropped about three pounds since I started training 15 weeks ago (and I'm still about three pounds heavier than when I ran Frederick last year).

However, I'm going to start the calorie counting this week and try to continue through the taper period. My goal is to hit somewhere around 2,000 net calories a day - this should allow me to maintain my current weight and not gain additional weight before marathon day.

Days like yesterday - where my 5.5 mile run had me burning over 700 calories - are much easier. It is much easier for me to consume 2,700 calories than 2,000 calories :-) There will be days that will likely go over - like this Sunday which is a non-running day for me and it is my younger son's 4th birthday party.

However, by avoiding the nightly "pantry raid" while watching a game on TV, I think this strategy will get me to the starting line feeling less lethargic - and maybe even a little lighter!

Time To Taper

It's taper time!

Last week was my final 40 mile week of the marathon training calendar. Now the weekly mileage totals will decrease until the marathon itself.

The training plan that I have been following shows the next two weeks' mileage as 28 miles and 19 miles. I find that much of a decrease a bit too drastic. My normal training base was 20-25 miles a week before I started marathon training, so going below this level may not be the best thing. Plus, before last year's marathon the taper left me feeling sluggish - plus I put on a few pounds during the taper.

My plan is to have a 30-32 mile week this week and a 25 mile week next week. I also am going to start counting calories so I don't add extra weight this time around. The calorie counting will give me something else to obsess about rather than "why am I not running???"
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This morning's 5 miler was almost scratched. My older son had some bad dreams and came into our room a little after 3am and 4am (no more Halloween-type shows for the next few weeks!). I didn't think I would wake up in time to get out the door by 6am given how I felt when I brought my son back to his room. But my younger son woke up around 5:40am and woke us up as well, so I got my running clothes on and headed out the door.

Another cool, dark morning. I laid out a long sleeve shirt and shorts - which was perfect. I had a bit of uncertainty as I started given how my last run went. To add some fuel to that fire, the HRM part of my Garmin has been giving me really high readings during the first mile of my runs...this started happening last week. Luckily, after the first mile or so, the heart rate readings go back down to normal. I'm going to see about changing the battery in the chest strap and see if that will help.

This morning's stats - 5.5 miles in a 10:01/mile pace with a 149 average HR (with the first mile overstated, so my average HR was really a bit lower).

I Got My Bib Number!

I checked the NY Marathon page and I have been assigned bib number

56258.

This means I'm in Wave Start #3 (10:20am), in the Orange group and in Corral G.

I'm not surprised I'm in wave start #3, as I believe the starts are staggered by projected finishing time. I'm also excited to be in the Orange group as I'll be running on the top deck of the Verrazano Bridge.

However, I'm a bit surprised that I'm in corral G. The last corral. Not that I'm all that fast or anything, but I'm thinking there are going to be plenty of runners with times in the 5+ and 6+ hour finishing times. If I'm planning to finish in around 4:40, I'm going to have to do a lot of weaving through traffic...

Bonking In The Sun

The title says it all. I didn't complete my 22 mile run today. I stopped at 20 miles. Actually, I pretty much stopped at 18.5 and walked most of the rest to 20 miles.

So...what happened?

First of all, weather was a big contributor. It was 70 degrees when I started, and 86 degrees when I called it quits.

I think nutrition/hydration had a bit of a factor too. I was so concerned about how to handle the morning of the run and during the run that I forgot to eat extra carbs and drink extra water yesterday and the day before. I felt depleted around mile 14...way too early.

A few other contributors - my first two miles were a bit fast - 10:19 and 10:09. The Garmin also has mile 10 at 8:06...I'm pretty sure the Garmin messed up somewhere - part of this mile was in the Air Rights Tunnel in Bethesda...I would assume that Garmin would extrapolate distance when the satellites were back in range, but perhaps it didn't extrapolate so well?

Elevation was also a factor. The first 9 miles were net uphill 400 ft. This may have tired me out a bit. My route started at Dupont Circle Metro station, went towards Georgetown where I got onto the CCT trail, into Bethesda and over to Chevy Chase where I got onto the Rock Creek Trail and then to Veirs Mill Road. My car was parked on Veirs Mill Road near the Rockville Metro - about 2 miles from the trail. Of course I did not run those last two miles - I hopped on a Metro Bus and took it to my car. Here's a link to the route.

I won't go through all of the details of the run, but here are a few highlights (and lowlights):

• The time of day of this morning's run - I started at 10:25am by the time I got downtown - is almost exactly the time I'll be starting to run in NY for the marathon. I ate my pre-run fuel at 8am and this seemed to work as well. I also wore my Alzheimer's Association singlet which I'm hoping to wear for the race!
• I fueled up this morning with a cup of coffee - black with sugar - and a big piece of injera - an Ethiopian bread. I picked up the injera yesterday at a nearby Ethiopian restaurant. The idea of injera came to me yesterday afternoon. I was thinking what the elites probably fuel up with before their long runs, and I remembered that many of the elites are from East Africa, so I decided to try it out. I think this worked out well - it filled me up, digested easily and I did not have any stomach pains during my run.
• There were three times that I had to "double back" due to going the wrong way. The first time was when I needed to leave the CCT trail and get onto the Rock Creek Trail. I accidentally continued on the CCT trail because I knew the Rock Creek Trail was straight ahead - except for the fact that that part of the CCT trail was on a bridge/overpass a good 50 feet above Rock Creek and the trail. Oops!
• The other two times I had to double back was in the 18th and 19th mile. It was very frustrating. I'm not sure whether there was bad signage or if I was just to out of it to realize there was signage.
• As part of my fueling strategy during the run, I decided to bring some food to go along with my GU. I brought a Cherry Pie Larabar. I like Larabars because most of them have less than 6 ingredients - and I can recognize all of the ingredients. It seems more like "real food" than many of the engineered energy bars. The Cherry Pie Larabar's ingredients are Dates, Almonds and Unsweetened Cherries. That's all. I opened the bar at mile 15 - it was a welcome distraction for almost the entire mile....and it probably got me through miles 16 and 17.

I'm going to try to not let this failed attempt at 22 miles get me down about New York. I felt pretty good after my 20 miler - in much cooler weather. I'm hoping the temperatures in NY will be cooler than today and that will likely give me a few more miles (8 more hopefully!) to run.

Preparing for THE Long Run

Tomorrow I am doing THE long run of my marathon training.

22 miles.

More planning has been put into this training run than many of the races I have run!

First of all, it will take me close to 4 hours to run this distance. Finding 4 consecutive hours on my schedule during the next few days has been tough. This weekend there are special holidays (Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah) so I'm going to synagogue both Saturday and Sunday. It is my 20th High School reunion on Saturday night - so I really did not want to run this on Saturday morning and then be dead tired on Saturday night.

I have some vacation days to burn at work, so I decided to take tomorrow off. Excellent! I can run on my day off, right? Well...my older son has a half day due to the holidays - which means there is less than 3 hours between the time I drop my younger son off at school at 9:15am and when I would need to pick my older son up at noon. UGH!!! I coordinated to have my older son go home with a friend until my wife can pick him up later so I can get my run in. Go figure, I'm taking the day off and don't have time to pick up the kids. Did I mention how much I love my wife....

Next I needed to find a route. 22 miles is a lot of ground to cover. I also want some change of scenery so I'm not bored to tears. I have decided to connect the CCT trail to the Rock Creek Park trail route that the Parks Half Marathon is run on. I'll park at or near the Rockville Metro, take the Metro downtown to either Dupont Circle or Farragut North, and start running from there towards Georgetown to pick up the CCT trail (hopefully about a mile). I think it is about 8 miles up the trail to Bethesda and then another 13 miles to the Rockville Metro station if I follow the Parks Half Marathon route. There's 22 miles for ya!

Another cool thing about this training run is that I'll be running it at about the same time of day that I'll be running the NY Marathon. Since I need to drop my son off at nursery school, I probably won't get downtown until a little after 10am. This will be good for me since I'm so used to running at 6am...I need some more practice running later in the day.

This run will also give me a good chance to practice nutrition and hydration. Since I'm running at the same time of day, I can simulate what I will eat on race day before the run and during the run. I need to give this a little more thought this afternoon and evening so I have a plan tomorrow morning.

I'm usually not nervous or anxious for a training run, but this had so much planning going into it that I'm a bit jittery. Perhaps that's also good practice???

Lunchtime Run On A Really Windy Day

Today was my scheduled lunchtime run (unlike yesterday where I ran on my lunch hour because I overslept).

On the plan was 5 miles. I was really dreading the thought of doing the same 5.5 mile loop that I always do. I wanted to find some new trails. I wanted to explore. Then reality set in...I need to run 5 miles, shower and shovel some food down my gullet in the 90 minutes that I have set aside. I need to start and end my run from my home office and that's final!

However, instead of doing the normal loop, I decided to just meander around the neighborhood. There are a few walking trails through the woods and around the lakes, so I would just focus on hitting these and running some of the streets between them.

I ended up running 4.9 hilly miles. Near the lakes there were some pretty strong headwinds. The rest of the time, it was just a constant whirling wind to carry the autumn leaves across the sky. I love fall :-)

Stats: 4.9 miles in 50:57. A 10:25/mile pace with an average HR of 147.

800 Miles!

After today's tempo run, I now have hit 800 miles for the year! (801.1 to be exact...)

I'm about 35 miles ahead of pace for 1,000 miles for the year. Even with the upcoming taper and rest period after the marathon, I think I still may be able to achieve the goal this year that I was not able to hit last year...

The Day The Music Died...

My iPod died this morning :-(

It was old. It had a black and white screen. No pictures. No videos. And now, no juice.

I used to run with the brick. It would be good for about 3 miles and then it would start skipping. I purchased an iPod shuffle a little over a year ago to run with since it is a flash memory player instead of a hard drive player. No skipping!

However, I still used my iPod in the car and at the office.

It's the end of an era. I'll now be jumping into the age of color screens and support for video. Stay tuned...
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UPDATE!!!

I was able to resuscitate my iPod this evening! I had tried holding the Menu and Play buttons together a few times today, but I guess I didn't hold them down long enough. I tried one more desperate attempt at doing this and held them for about 10 long seconds. Finally, the Apple appeared and my iPod came back to life!!!

Managing Your Boss To Get A Run In

I overslept this morning. My wife woke me at 6:05am asking me if I was going to run. I really did not have time since she leaves with my older son to drive carpool around 7:15am. So I was stuck - either run at lunch or no run today.

As soon as I logged into my work computer, I saw a large empty chunk of time from 12 noon to 2pm. Hooray! I'm running at lunchtime!

However, as I was going through my emails, I received one from my boss who decided to move a meeting from 10am to 1pm. Oh man!

I started thinking about this meeting. The other PM on the project was not in the office today and was returning tomorrow. Also, there hasn't been much going on from my end with this project. It sounded like a waste of 30 minutes to me - plus it would stop me from my lunchtime run.

So...I replied to my boss giving him and update with my portion of the project, explaining that the other PM is not in the office and that it would be much better to meet tomorrow morning.

A few hours later I received the notice moving the meeting to tomorrow. YES!

My 11am meeting finished a little early and I was out the door by 11:45am. My plan - do my 7.4 mile neighborhood loop as a tempo run. One easy, warm-up mile; six miles at a "10K pace", cooldown for the rest.

My 10K PR is at a 9:03/mile pace. Since I feel I'm likely in the best shape of my life (except for about 10 more pounds that I should lose), I decided I would try to do the tempo portion at a 9 minute mile. Either I would crash and burn, or I would know that I could go for a 10K PR after the marathon :-)

I ran my warm-up mile in 9:45. I have no idea what my HR really was for that mile as I was getting false readings in the 190s and 200s. However, I pretty much knew my heart was not working that hard so I ignored heart rate on this run.

As I started to push the pace at the start of mile 2, I started to get a side stitch - probably from my mid-morning granola bar. Grrrr. I thought there that I would do one mile at tempo and then see if I could continue.

The side stitch disappeared at some point during mile 2. At the end of that mile is a monster hill - I hoofed it up and hit my first tempo split at 8:59.

That would be the closest I would get to a 9 minute mile. I found another gear somewhere and hit splits of 8:31, 8:29, 8:54, 8:16 and 8:40. Holy cow!!!!

To put this into perspective, the last 10K I ran was the Turkey Chase on Thanksgiving morning. I had a time of 1:00:30 for 6.2 miles. I ran the first 7 miles of my run today in 1:01:35...and this included a "warm-up" mile.

As long as I stay healthy after the marathon, I should be able to bring my 10K PR down on Thanksgiving morning. Watch out turkeys!